Well...allow me to tell you a little story. When my 20g mini-reef was in the process of "maturing" I experienced a severe hair algae outbreak theat the clean-up crew could not keep up with. I borrowed a Yellow Tang from our LFS and within one and a half weeks...no hair algae. I was impressed. HTH
Welcome to reefs.org, abraham. You'll find more answers to this ubiquitous problem, to be sure.
Aragorn....LOULE!! You "borrowed" a fish? :lol: What a cheeky monkey..:lol:
Believe it or not, abalone might be a good alternative, but from what I've read they are so voracious that you won't be able to keep any other algal feeder in the system without supplementation.
HA! Reefsafe hairalgae eater? You are asking too much, eh?
(j/k)
Yellow tang is the best that I can think of now. DON'T get emeral crab. They will grow from a tame little lamb to a varocious menacing hyena terrorizing your corals in a couple of months. My abalone is a great helper on algae, but mostly stays on glass cruising for diatom. Seldom travels on to the LR looking for GHA.
If you are getting a yellow tang, or any tangs for that matter, and if your tank is 200Gallon or less, DON'T tell us how big your tank is. PLEASE............
My tank is also having a little GHA problem (just a small patch on a LR). Bought a 2" YT & a Lawnmower Blenny few weeks ago. Both of them DON'T even look at the GHA. I'm loss here.
My LFS recommended a Kole Tang instead. But the price is double of the YT.